All My Mother's Lovers
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University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty and staff for welcoming, educating, and sharing wisdom with me, especially Timothy Schaffert, advisor and early reader of this book, for the care, open door, cocktails, and friendship; Hope Wabuke and Stacey Waite, early readers and committee members with valuable notes and incredible minds; Joy Castro, for encouragement, grace, and empathy; Amelia María de la Luz Montes, for blowing my mind with theory I loved; Julia Schleck, for giving me the call and for incredible teaching; and Jennine Capó Crucet, for plucking the weirdest, most ambitious writing I’ve ever done off a pile, seeing what I was going for, and insisting I deserved a spot here. Thank you all, also, for your incredible writing in your various fields—what gifts your words are to the world.
Catherine Goldberg, for the shipments and care.
Sharon Holiner, early reader, best friend, writer and artist, kindred spirit, beautiful soul, for being you. We are so lucky to have found each other, and we’ve worked hard to keep each other. To dentures and beyond, love.
Josh Langman, early reader, design expert, keen eye, for the unwavering belief that I could and that I would, for the advice and friendship and fonts and heffalumps.
Alexandra Franklin, early-early reader (before we even met), for the friendship, advice, faith, bookish nerdery, constant texts, literary conversations, intellectual stimulation, anxiety soothing, and for knowing this was the one before it was done, before I believed it, before it was possible.
Mike Cahill, my partner and beloved, my Peter, for the eggs, the cuddles, the Friday night pizzas, the Sunday morning diners, moving with me, making home feel like home, and everything else that makes you family—I love you. And to Mike Sr., Deb, Brendan and Staci and Martin, for welcoming me so wholeheartedly.
My many literary communities who’ve filled my mind and fueled my body with words and thoughts and opinions and kindness, through Twitter and Facebook and other extremely-online-venues, for letting me in and teaching me more every single day. There are far, far too many of you to name, but if we’ve interacted about books, writing, feelings, impostor syndrome, residencies, etc., it’s you I’m thanking here.
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, where I wrote a big chunk of this book, and NaNoWriMo, for the physical and virtual spaces, for the invitation and the inclusion, for the communities both IRL and online.
Eric Simonoff, for being the best agent a queer Jewish weirdo could have, for the phone calls, patience, faith, and friendship. Here’s to many more years and book talks! Taylor Rondestvedt, thank you for the kindness, the check-ins, and the cover talk—I can’t wait to see what you do next. And everyone at WME who has been involved behind the scenes, without my knowing your names, thank you.
Maya Ziv, editor of wonder—they say it only takes one, and I’m so glad you were it!—for seeing, getting, and loving this book from the start, for making the editing process exciting and invigorating, for pushing me to fill in the gaps and letting me stand up for what I needed, for creating a space of mutual trust and admiration, for meeting me where I’m at even in the depths of anxiety, for believing in me, this book, this work.
Folks at Dutton without whom this wouldn’t be possible: John Parsley, Christine Ball, Hannah Feeney, Natalie Church, Sarah Thegeby, Susan Schwartz, LeeAnn Pemberton, Erica Ferguson, Christopher Lin and Lynn Buckley, Elke Sigal, and Maria Whelan, thank you all—some of you I haven’t met or spoken with yet, because the structure of how this all works separates us and because I’m just one of many, many people for whom you make dreams come true, but please know that I so value and appreciate your work, skills, judgment, flexibility, and think you all deserve a raise.
And, finally, writers everywhere, whose imaginations, words, and books shaped me, whose careers and paths have demonstrated a way forward, for the empathy, the heart, the words, and the endless hours of pleasure, pain, and deeply felt narratives you’ve given this eternal reader.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ilana Masad is a queer Israeli-American fiction writer, essayist, and book critic whose work has appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, NPR, BuzzFeed, Catapult, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as others. She is the founder and host of The Other Stories podcast and a doctoral student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where she also serves as the assistant nonfiction editor for Prairie Schooner. All My Mother’s Lovers is her debut novel.
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